Surface Ripples

Why We Should Hire “Older” Workers

Al Bagocius, a member of the “Executive Suite” group on LinkedIn, posted an article by the Harvard Business Review on this.  HBR stated: “Our career systems, pay systems, and recruitment and assessment systems are designed against hiring older people.”

According to HBR, many companies believe that older people are “overpaid” and can be “replaced with younger workers” who can do the job just as well.  People like Mark Zuckerberg and others publicly state that “younger people are smarter.” 

We have an entire media and publishing industry that glorifies youth.

However, scientific evidence disagrees.  For most people, “raw mental horsepower” does indeed decline after the age of 30, but knowledge and expertise — the main predictors of job performance — keep increasing even beyond the age of 80. 

There is also ample evidence to assume that traits like “drive” and “curiosity” are catalysts for new skill acquisition, even during late adulthood. 

When it comes to learning new things, there is just no age limit and the more intellectually engaged people remain when they are older, the more they will contribute to the labour market.”

Other benefits from hiring older workers can be less absence due to sickness or maternity/paternity leave (they’ve brought their children up already).  With their pre-existing experience of the employment market, they’re also likely to have “seen it all before” (or at least a great deal of “it”) and be able to apply this to solving problems that may be “new”” to their younger colleagues.  They will also have seen more of what can go wrong and suggest ways to avoid repeating the lessons of history).

Mocking older people may be a tradition in the West, but they have a vast storehouse of experience to share.  To see this in action, look at how many retired executives join groups advising start-ups on the various facets of building and running a business.  

A final thought: in many countries, we’re seeing a “greying” (Ageing) of the population without sufficient numbers of young people coming in to replace them in the economy.  One way round this is to encourage young immigrants with the skills needed.  Another would be to allow older workers to remain in work. 

Read more from the Harvard Business Review in the article entitled, “The Case for Hiring Older Workers” by Josh Bersin and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic @ https://lnkd.in/gsDGfuw

I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management.  I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.  For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.

Labels: Leadership, Strategy, Teamwork

posted by William Martin @ 08:15